The attic trapdoor shuddered once.
Twice.
Something heavy tested it from below.
The boards trembled under Hao's chest. He lay flat on the floor, cheek pressed against the dust, one hand wrapped so tightly around the old rope hanging from the beam that his fingers ached.
His lungs dragged in air that tasted like wood and age and the faint, metallic tang seeping up from below.
The banging stopped.
He waited.
The silence didn't feel empty. It thickened, settling over him like a second layer of floorboards, pressing him down.
Then it shifted.
A new sound sputtered into existence beneath him.
Crunch.
Munch.
Tear.
Wet. Dense.
Eating.
One of his friends, maybe. Or what was left of them. Or whatever the thing had filed under "acceptable snack."
The sounds vibrated through the beams and into his ribs, into his teeth, into the back of his skull. He stared up into the dark roof, eyes tracing the crooked lines where planks met.
"Is this real?" he whispered.
The attic swallowed the question and gave nothing back.
He lifted his hand and slapped his own cheek.
His palm stung.
His face stung.
"Doesn't matter," he told himself quietly.
For the first time in a very long time, his mind wasn't crowded.
No exam dates queued up behind his eyes. No mental checklist of workouts and meals. No quiet fear about rent and jobs and the kind of future that looked suspiciously like an endless treadmill.
There was only this.
Fear, sharp and clean.
And beneath it, something else.
A strange, quiet clarity. Like all the noise had been stripped away, leaving only a single choice: move or die.
He let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Ha… haha…"
Below, bones cracked.
Flesh tore.
Something soft squelched. The chewing noises grew louder for a moment, then settled into slow, methodical bites that felt horribly deliberate.
Then they stopped.
Silence sank over the cabin again.
Heavy as a blanket.
If the police showed up and everyone's missing except me, he thought suddenly, voice dry in his own head, I'd look like the killer.
It was absurd. It didn't even line up with where he was, or with the rules carved into his mind. But the thought was almost comforting in its stupidity, something normal-shaped to grab onto.
It made him move.
The thing would need time to finish swallowing.
That was his chance.
He eased the trapdoor open.
This time the hinges didn't creak. No protesting groan. Just a slow, obedient shift.
He lowered the ladder with careful hands and began his descent, one foot feeling for each rung before he put his weight on it.
His ears strained.
Munch.
Crack.
…
Silence.
He froze halfway.
The wood under his foot felt like it might evaporate if he breathed too hard.
Then the noises started again.
Munch.
Crunch.
Munch.
He kept going.
Something in him shifted on that ladder.
The version of himself who walked behind Kevin at school, adding the occasional nod while staying comfortably in the background, felt far away.
So did the boy hunched over his laptop at 2 a.m., drowning in responsibilities.
This version of him felt closer to the truth.
His body adjusted in the logic of the trial.
He straightened. He stood taller in his own skin. Shoulders broadened, settling into a shape earned by too many sessions at the gym when he should've been resting. Muscles defined themselves under his shirt, memory sculpting them more honestly than any mirror.
His hair grew just a little longer in the space between breaths, enough to fall toward his eyes so he could push it back. His features sharpened, losing the soft blur of "tired student" and resolving into something more like "someone who had survived things already, even if no one else had noticed."
All the cheap powder mixed into water at 2 a.m.
All the results chased on a brain running on fumes.
All the mornings he'd lifted weights heavier than his desire to be awake.
No one else had really known how much it cost.
His face stayed calm as he stepped off the last rung.
Not because he wasn't afraid.
Because he was too used to being exhausted for fear to take up all the space.
What is that thing compared to me? he thought, moving toward the hallway. So what if I'm just human? This is my dream. Who decided I don't get a say?
His bare feet touched the first floor.
He walked into the hallway.
The house creaked quietly around him, the monster's feast still echoing from below.
For the first time since the game had started, something inside him wasn't just trying to survive.
It was looking for a way to face his fear.